These Are You Lives: A Virtual Buffy Webisode
by Unitarian Jihadist
Summary: In an attempt to bring Buffy back, Dawn, Willow, and Riley Finn help the Slayer to integrate the memories of her previous 301 lives. Meanwhile, an old flame enlists Xander’s aide in a dangerous quest.
1. Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

These Are Your Lives

A Virtual Buffy "Webisode"

In an attempt to bring Buffy back, Dawn, Willow, and Riley Finn help the Slayer to integrate the memories of her previous 301 lives. Meanwhile, an old flame enlists Xander's aide in a dangerous quest.

_First of all, the necessary disclaimers: Buffy and all affiliated characters are the intellectual and actual property of Josh Whedon and the fine people at Mutant Enemy and 20__th__ Century Fox. I am using these characters without their permission. As this is a work of FAN fiction, by a FAN, I am doing this in part as a tribute to the owners and creators of these characters. I derive no profit from this story except for my own personal enjoyment and hopefully the enjoyment of others. It should also be noted that this particular "webisode" makes direct use of material from the graphic novel __**Tales of the Slayer**__, published by Dark Horse Comics. Also, in this chapter, there is a brief reference to a Dracula and Xander centric story in the comic book mini-series __**Tales of the Vampires**__, also published by Dark Horse_.

_This is the fourth "webisode" of a mostly hidden season 8 of BtVS that exists in my head. Of course, this means that I am now directly contradicting canon because there is an official season 8 being done in comic book form. My own storyline is the result of my imaginings about what was going on with Buffy and the scoobies during the excellent fifth season of Angel. _

_This story is a sequel to the already posted stories "Caliban's Daughters", "One Less Martyr", and "Primitive". If you find that you like this story, you might want to go back and check out these other stories so that you have a better sense of what is going on here._

_Meanwhile, some really basic orientation:_

_Buffy is the reincarnation of the original slayer, the Primitive. _

_Dawn, it turns out, was a potential slayer after all. She is also a potential witch, watcher, and pretty much whatever else she wants to be. _

_Willow is becoming a Goddess with a capital "G". She's also the world's newest tech billionaire. _

_Buffy, Dawn, and Willow together form the "Female Trinity": The Warrior, the Adept, and the Goddess. They are prophesied to be the primary warriors on the side of good in the upcoming Apocalypse (the same one that involves the "vampire with a soul" tipping the balance between good and evil). _

_The bad guys are the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart, and their representatives: Wolfram and Hart, the Circle of the Black Thorn, and the original Watcher's Council. The Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart are the totemic names of the "shadow men" who founded the original Watcher's Council and, it was mistakenly thought, created the first slayer. They actually created the second slayer after murdering the Primitive and stealing her power. _

_Among the OC's are the McGraths, who include the world's oldest known activated slayer, 45 year old Lyssa McGrath, Lyssa's oldest daughter, 17 year old Karyn, and Lyssa's youngest daughter, 12 year old Caitlyn. Both of Lyssa's daughters are also slayers (Caitlyn was the girl at bat in "Chosen"), and Karyn was a veteran of the Battle of the Hellmouth. Karyn is Dawn's new best friend, and Lyssa, who was widowed when her husband was killed by Hellbringers who were after Karyn, is now romantically involved with Giles. Also among the OC's are a very young (13 year old) Congolese slayer named Genevieve and Jono, Xander's pilot in Africa. Xander, while not a billionaire, is also independently wealthy thanks to the sale of contracts he owned to rebuild Sunnydale._

_Finally, I am writing this story in a present tense format meant to depict what it would be like watching the action on a television screen. _

_Well, that's about it. Hopefully, if you read on from here, you will have fun:_

Giles' voice: "Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer…"

**Edna Giles home in the Nottingham countryside **

"What is the prophecy, the first prophecy every watcher and every slayer learns?**" **Edna Giles asks Dawn and her grandson.

" 'Into each generation a slayer is born, one girl in all the world born with the strength and skill'…" Giles begins.

"That's good, Rupert," Edna says, cutting him off. "Did you hear the key phrasing there?"

"I'm afraid not," Dawn says.

"I'm afraid I'm rather at a loss as well," Giles says.

" 'Into each_ generation _a slayer is _born_'…" Edna says. "Not 'when one slayer dies, another takes her place'. The original slayer was part Higher Being. Her physical body could be killed, and much of her power could be taken. But, her _spirit_ was beyond the power of the Shadow Men to contain. So, the spirit went out and searched for a girl child who otherwise would be stillborn. The spirit would _choose_ that child for her next incarnation. That child would grow up to be the next '_chosen_ one'."

"So you are saying that _Buffy_ is the latest incarnation of the _original_ slayer?" Dawn says.

"Yes," Edna says. "That's why Buffy's own powers increase with every slayer death. When your friend Willow used the scythe to activate all of the potentials, what she actually did was call all of the stolen power of the original slayer back onto this plane of existence, back from wherever the Shadow Men had hidden it. When one of the other slayers dies that stolen power, instead of going back to wherever the Shadow Men had kept it, now returns home.

"And that home, dear heart, is your sister."

**The Slayer Academy in Rio de Janeiro**

Two slayers, Ana (who is a veteran of the Battle of the Hellmouth) and Helena, walk into the lobby and to the front door. There is a number pad by the front door. Ana pushes some numbers, and the door unlocks. Ana opens the door.

Our view switches to outside, and faces downward. Ana walks out into the front courtyard, and we see that she is under an enormous shadow. Her eyes and mouth are wide open in terror as we see the shadow move, and we realize it has wings. Helena follows Ana out with an identical expression on her face. Helena starts to aim her crossbow at whatever is casting the shadow.

Suddenly the screen is filled with blue, white, and yellow flame. Our view switches to ground level and we see Ana and Helena instantly reduced to blackened skeletons before being vaporized entirely.

**Rio de Janeiro, by the burning remains of the Slayer Academy, and the headquarters of the New Watcher's Council in Devonshire**

Willow is standing by her land rover, in front of the still blazing rubble of the Rio Slayer Academy. She is speaking into a cell phone.

"We've had 6 slayers report in who were either out shopping or visiting their families," Willow says. "Other than them and Kennedy, though, we have to consider the other 72 slayers _lost_."

We then switch to Giles, who is standing in a large atrium. He is on a speaker phone. Surrounding him are several young watchers in training, including Andrew. Also standing among them is Caitlyn McGrath, Lyssa McGrath's 12 year old daughter (although she looks even younger). Caitlyn is among the youngest of the new slayers.

"Is there any chance that some of them _survived_ the attack, and are buried under the rubble somewhere?" Giles asks.

Willow shakes her head sadly.

"You aren't seeing what _I'm_ seeing, Giles," Willow says. "Nobody who was in the Academy could have _possibly_ survived. It's a _**total**_ loss."

**Central Mongolia**

Buffy, her eyes red and yellow, is wearing an armor breastplate and fighting among a crowd of Mongol vampire warriors and their vampire horses. In spite of being surrounded, she is holding her own until a desperate Mongol warrior leaps off of his horse and tackles Buffy to the ground. Others immediately pile on to hold her down, and with a great deal of difficulty, they succeed in doing so. It is clear that Buffy is much stronger than not only one of them, but several of them. One of the warriors, his garb more colorful than the rest, steps forward, and two of the vampiric mounts move aside to let him through. This is Khan, chief of the vampire warriors.

Khan speaks in his native language, and we see what he is saying in subtitles.

"Hold her down, and I will put an end to _the _slayer once and for all," and so saying, Khan raises his sword to, in all probability, cut off Buffy's head.

However, the next second, Khan's look of triumph changes to one of confusion, then fear. We hear startled growls, then screams of fear from the Mongol vampire warriors. A splatter of blood strikes Khan's face. Then, a great cloud of dust obscures our view of Khan as we hear sounds of dreadful, bone crunching and flesh tearing violence.

Our viewpoint shifts so that we are now looking at the cloud of vampire dust from the outside. A Mongol vampire warrior stumbles backwards out of the cloud. It is Khan himself. With a cry, he swings his sword back into the dust cloud. In mid swing, the sword is yanked out of his hand. Then an arm reaches out and grabs Khan by the throat. Another hand smashes into his chest, through the breast plate, and comes out with his heart. Both Khan and the heart then implode into dust.

"B…Buffy?" Dawn whispers.

Then a figure emerges from the dust cloud. Although clad in Buffy's clothes, she is not Buffy. She is hunched over. Her hair is dark and when she shows her face, it is human and yet very different. The face projects, the teeth are huge.

She looks at the slayers, who are all standing in stunned silence.

Then the Primitive throws back her head and howls. The howl sounds like a cross between a multitude of female voices and the roar of some prehistoric beast.

"I _really_ don't think that's Buffy," Karyn says.

**The Headquarters of the Circle of the Black Thorn**

From within the great, almost football field sized glowing stone meeting table of the Circle of the Black Thorn, the Master of the Circle speaks.

_**I burned the Slayer Academy in Rio to the ground, with at least 70 slayers inside.**_

For a moment, there is stunned silence. Then, there is the sound of applause. Finally, the members of the Black Circle stand up as one and start to cheer loudly.

"Well done, Lord!"

"That will show those bitches who's the boss!"

"The False Watcher's Council must be crying in their beer by now!"

"Here! Here!"

"So Lord, exactly what did _**that**_ accomplish?"

The cheering abruptly ends. In the nervous silence that follows, the members of the Circle back away from the table, all except for the individual who dared to ask the question:

_Dracula_.

_**To answer your question, Count, I refer you to my guest. **_

With that, the elevator at the head of the stairs above the Circle's great table opens. Walking out is a cloaked figure. At the head of the stairs, the cloaked figure throws off the top of her cloak and stands revealed as a handsome dark haired woman of about 50.

Obviously a traitor to the Devonshire Coven of which she is a high ranking member, and to the new Watcher's Council, the newcomer stands revealed as Althea Giles!

_**Miss Giles?**_

"As predicted, the power from the dead in Rio went straight to Buffy Summers," Althea Giles says. "Consequently, the Buffy Summers personality was overwhelmed. The _Primitive_ now stands in her place."

Again, a loud muttering is heard around the table. Dracula laughs.

"Of _course_," he says. "The Primitive had _no_ regard for or interest in humans, only for the full demons she hunted. As such, she is _useless_ to the Female Trinity until her Buffy Summers personality is restored."

_**Exactly, Count! And while they try to rescue Miss Summers, we are going to be busy.**_

_**Mr. Vanderveer!**_

_**Unleash your Runners!**_

"Of course, Lord," Vanderveer says. "But I thought the Johannesburg Academy had _already _been evacuated."

_**It has. The target is not the slayers who lived there, but the man who led the evacuation. **_

_**I want the Runners sent after Alexander Lavelle Harris. He is the last target anyone would expect us to go for, but each member of the Trinity will be devastated by his death. **_

Upon hearing the words of the Master of the Circle, however, Dracula does not look pleased with the idea.

**Castle Dracula**

Dracula is standing in front of his fireplace. Out of the fireplace, two voices, male and female, speak simultaneously.

"_Wwhy ddid yyou cconact uus wwith tthis iinformation?" _the voices ask. _"Wwe bbelieved yyou tto bbe aa lloyal mmember oof tthe Ccircle oof tthe Bblack Tthorn."_

"I am in _most_ things but…" Dracula says. "But I have come to _like_ Xander Harris. He stayed with me not long ago and he amused me greatly. He taught me how to ride a motor scooter."

"_SSo yyou wwish uus tto rrescue yyoung Mmr. Hharris, iis tthat iit?" _the voices say.

"Yes," Dracula says. "Yes I suppose I do."

"_Tthe Llord oof tthe Ccircle wwould ddeal hharshly wwith yyou, Ccount," _the voices say. _Iif hhe kknew oof tthis cconversation."_

"Even the Lord of the Circle can not _destroy_ me," Dracula says. "_Nothing_ can until the world truly and completely ends. You _know_ that. Still, you are correct. He could make my existence unpleasant for a very long time.

"So, will you _help_ him?"

"_Yyes," _the voices reply. _"Wwe hhave aalready ssent aa ppowerful aagent wwho wwill bbe vvery mmotivated tto pprotect hhim."_

**Johannesburg**

"Alex!" Genevieve says, pointing down the street.

Xander turns and looks where Genevieve is pointing. Our viewpoint switches to what they are looking at. Five men, naked or nearly naked, are running towards them. Two of them are on two legs, but the other three are running on all fours! The three on all fours are not at all awkward, they are bounding with an unnerving grace. And they are moving very fast.

"_**Runners**_!" Xander yells. "And they're coming this way! We gotta get outta here!"

Genevieve steps in between Xander and Jono and the pack of Runners. As they get closer, we see that their eyes are black pits, and their teeth are not human looking at all. They look like the teeth of deep sea fish.

"Look _out_, Genevieve, their bite is poisonous!" Xander yells.

Jono does not have time to translate to Genevieve before the nearest of the Runners leaps towards Xander. Genevieve tries to intercept it, but it moves far too quick for her. Xander raises his hands defensively but before the Runner lands on him, a crossbow bolt strikes the creature's midsection, and it falls to Xander's side. It tries to get up to bite Xander, but another bolt strikes it in its left black eye, then a third hits its right eye. The creature falls and starts to convulse. Xander looks up and we see what he sees. The other Runners are also convulsing with crossbow bolts sticking out of them. Genevieve looks confused. Jono looks in the direction the crossbow bolts came from and then taps Xander on the shoulder. Xander turns and follows Jono's gaze. His eye widens in obvious surprise.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Xander exclaims.

Cordelia Chase, looking lovelier than ever, tosses her long brown hair back with her left hand. Over her right shoulder, she balances a rather large, powerful looking crossbow.

"What does it _look_ like I'm doing, Harris?" Cordelia says. "I'm saving your ass."

**Mongolia**

"Who are we waiting for?" Vi asks as she and Dawn stand together.

"You'll see," Dawn says. "In fact, they're already here."

The next moment a huge black helicopter, a flying gunship, appears over the rise as if out of nowhere. Soon, it is hovering above them, and a figure drops out. After falling about 30 feet, the figure lands on her feet and runs towards the two slayers. As she gets closer we see it is Faith, dressed in Initiative black and carrying something wrapped up in canvass.

"Glad to see you, Faith," Dawn says. She has to speak loudly over the helicopter.

"When it comes to B, nothing keeps me away," Faith says. "I wouldn't be where I am today without her."

Faith then turns and looks at Vi.

"So you brought the 'Red Death' herself to play with us," Faith says. "Bringin' out the _big_ guns! Cool!"

Vi looks embarrassed.

"Hey Faith," she says. "What do you got there?"

"_Show_ her," Dawn says.

Faith pulls the canvass away with a flourish to reveal the scythe.

"What's _that_ for?" Vi asks.

"That weapon is tied to the Primitive," Dawn says. "It's why Willow was able to use it to call the power of the Slayer. The Primitive's power from the Primitive's weapon."

"So naturally, the Primitive is gonna want it _back_," Faith says.

"So let me get this straight," Vi says, turning to Dawn. "We're going to play keep away with your sister, who is no longer your sister, until we get her to chase us into an abandoned underground missile base, and hope that somehow she doesn't kill us in the chase."

"Right," Dawn says.

"How do we lock her in there without getting _trapped_ in there with her?" Vi says.

"We _don't_," says Dawn. "_We'll _have to be in there with her!"

**Mongolia, inside the abandoned missile base**

The Primitive pounds on a mystic barrier, one that Dawn created with her witchcraft. We see flashes of green light where the Primitive's fists strike. The sound of the pounding echoes off of the walls. Dawn cries out and falls to her knees, her nose is now bleeding.

"_Dawn_?" Faith says as she drops to her knees beside the younger slayer/witch.

"Get _away_ from me!" Dawn says. "I'm the only one who can stand up to her even for a _little_ while."

"Are you _kiddin'_?" Faith says. "You ain't even standin' _now_!"

Dawn, her eyes now glowing green, turns towards Faith.

"Go _now_!" she says. "Get _Riley_! _We can't blow this now_!"

Faith gets up and runs around the corner. We still hear the pounding echo off of the walls.

"Hey _Major_!" Faith yells. "We need your help! _Now_!"

Riley Finn steps around the corner. His shirt is off, although he is still wearing his black pants and boots. His head is now shaved, and his arms and upper body are lined with tattoos of mystic symbols. Combined with the scar we first saw him with in _As You Were_, Riley now looks more like a movie serial killer than the Apple Pie Captain America type. In each hand, he holds a machine pistol.

"Step aside, Faith," he says.

Our viewpoint now switches back to the Primitive and Dawn. The mystic barrier has fallen. The Primitive now has the scythe in her right hand. She is holding Dawn up by the throat with her left. The Primitive raises the scythe as if she is about to strike Dawn down.

"B…_Buffy_?" Dawn says.

The Primitive then brings the scythe up to strike Dawn. Riley fires his machine pistols. The Primitive's back is literally peppered with tranquilizer darts, but they seem to barely penetrate the skin, and the Primitive doesn't even turn around.

Dawn opens her eyes. Her eyes glow green, and so do the tears running down her face.

"Buffy _please_!" Dawn pleads.

The Primitive pauses. We now see confusion on her face.

Then our view switches to behind the Primitive as the darts are all suddenly pushed into her back by a mysterious invisible force. The Primitive weaves on her feet before dropping the scythe with a ringing clang and falling on top of Dawn.

"Riley, did _you_ do that?" Dawn asks.

"No, I was trying, but I wasn't strong enough," he says. "Someone helped me, someone stronger than I am. I thought it must have been _you_."

"Nope, it was just little ole me!" we hear a familiar voice say. We then see Willow walk around the corner. Her face looks drawn, and she looks as if she can barely stand.

**Devonshire, the headquarters for the New Watcher's Council**

"The Primitive was the _last_ of her kind," Giles says. "And her job was _done_. The old demons were extinct, so there was no longer anything for her to hunt.

"Indeed, there is no reason to suspect that the Primitive had _any_ use for our species at _all_."

"And now she's back," Andrew says.

"Yes," Giles says. "She's back; a violent, vastly powerful primordial demigoddess walking the earth without a purpose. An alpha predator with no prey.

"I can't see how this can _possibly_ end well."


	2. Teaser

Teaser

**Devonshire, the headquarters of the new Watcher's Council**

Giles and Andrew are standing next to each other in front of a damp stone wall, and behind and above them a wall torch flickers. They are obviously in a deep, damp stone cellar. Giles' expression is impassive, while Andrew's expression is one of horrified fascination. We hear a hideous scream of despair.

"You know," Andrew says to Giles. "When I was a kid I used to think _all_ vampires were like her."

Giles snorts softly in disdain.

"Hollywood," he mutters. "And actually, _you_ doubtlessly thought vampires were _fiction_, like your 'star knights'."

"_Jedi_ knights," Andrew says. "You mean _Jedi_ knights!"

"What does it matter?" Giles responds. "They're still _fiction_, the most _vulgar_ sort of fiction, in point of fact."

"Have you even _seen_ the Star Wars movies?" Andrew asks, clearly scandalized.

"Of _course_ not," Giles responds testily.

"Then how do you _know_ they're vulgar?" Andrew says. "Try them, you might _like_ them. Like broccoli! Or Green Eggs and Ham!"

"I _despise_ broccoli," Giles replies, the irritation in his voice increasing. The despairing screams increase in volume and length, so the watcher has to speak louder to make himself heard. "And for your health's sake, I would suggest that if you come across green eggs or a green ham, you refrain from eating them."

Giles pauses thoughtfully.

"On second thought," Giles says. "Why _don't_ you go _find_ some green eggs and ham? You can have some on me."

Andrew chuckles.

"Giles, you are _so_ funny sometimes," Andrew says. "The other watchers in training all say you don't have a sense of humor, but not _me_. I tell them, 'guys, Giles is simply really droll, and if you listen to him you'll find he's hilarious, sort of like a crusty, lovable uncle'. You know, like Uncle Charlie on _My Three Sons. _Did you ever watch…? "

"Andrew?" Giles says, interrupting Andrew's monologue.

"Yes sir?" Andrew responds.

"_Do_ shut up!" Giles says.

"Oh, _sure_," Andrew says, unfazed. He has clearly heard Giles say this to him many times.

Andrew complies with Giles' request for almost five entire seconds before he speaks again.

"So, _why_ are Dracula and his brides so _different _from the other vampires?" Andrew asks. "Why can't they be killed?"

"Actually, they _can_ be killed," Giles says. "They just don't _stay_ dead. They always come back."

"Why?" Andrew asks.

"Because they _aren't_ vampires, not _really_," Giles says. "They're living curses upon humanity."

"Living _curses_?" Andrew asks. "_Really_? Cool! I bet Dracula was _cursed_ with an eternal _thirst_ because he was so, _so_ evil as Vlad the Impaler!"

Giles sighs and puts his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose as if he is fighting off a terrible headache. The screaming is getting louder yet. There are the sounds of an increasing struggle. We hear a familiar voice curse and yell "Stay down and shut up, _bitch_!"

"Andrew," Giles says. "Vlad Tepes was _killed_ in battle with the Turks, and his _head_ was sent to the Sultan, who had it publicly displayed. That's why watchers like myself disregarded the Dracula story as the imaginings of a 19th century Irish author. Beheaded corpses do not become vampires. What we didn't realize is that there was _another_ Dracula. The reason for the shared name, I now suspect, goes back to the etymological meaning of the name '_Dracula_'."

As Giles speaks, our viewpoint shifts so that we see what he and Andrew are watching. Lucy Westenra is bound in garlic laden ropes and a cross is smoldering on her chest. The fourth bride of Dracula is hissing at the slayers who are forcing her into an open, chain draped coffin. The slayer doing most of the forcing is a very, very angry Kennedy.

As our view shifts back to Giles and Andrew, we see that the younger man, for once, is silent as he waits expectedly for Giles to finish his revelation.

"Dracul, dragon," Giles says. "The name 'Dracula' means _**son**__ of the dragon_."

As Giles finishes his sentence, our view shifts back to the coffin as the lid is finally shut on Lucy Westenra. Her scream is cut off with the closing of the coffin. The screen goes black.

**The abandoned Soviet missile base in central Mongolia**

"She's stirring," Dawn says as she looks at the unconscious but twitching body of the Primitive. "We don't have much time. Willow, do you really think you're ready to go?"

Our view switches to Riley Finn, who is attending to Faith. Faith is holding the back of her head and her jaw is swollen where the Primitive's elbow struck her.

"Frankly, Dawn, neither of you look ready to do this," he says.

Willow walks up and assists Riley in helping Faith to her feet. The slayer is clearly still shaky.

"Worst days of our lives and we'll _both_ still be better than you," Willow says with a tired smile. "No offense meant. _Really_. I mean you're good, _really_ good, but Dawn and I…"

"…are naturals in a way I can never be," Riley says with a smile. With that smile, he almost looks like the all American Iowa boy we knew, instead of the scary bald tattooed warrior wizard that he has become. "I _get_ it. Believe me, Will, _no_ offense taken. I just don't want to end up over my head if either of you two give out."

"We _won't_," Dawn says. "First of all, my sister's in there somewhere, and second, we'll all be able to draw strength from one another. And Riley, despite what Willow said we're _definitely_ going to need you. Each of us has a link with Buffy that will give us strength as we search for her."

The Primitive moans. It sounds like several women's voices at once, and underlying it all, the snarl of some powerful hunting beast.

"We better get going," Riley says.

"Uhm, _guys_?" Faith asks, leaning up against a control panel. "What do I do if she wakes up while you all are in B's head?"

"_Hide_," Dawn says. "But once we're in, she should remain unconscious once we engage her."

As she speaks, Dawn sits on the floor crosslegged. To her right, Willow sits on the floor crosslegged, and to Willow's right, Riley sits on the floor as well. Willow takes Dawn's and Riley's hands.

"So, you guys needing me to light a candle or something?" Faith asks.

"Shhhhh," says Riley. Then he nods to Willow, all three close their eyes.

And vanish.

"_Whoa_," Faith says. She picks up the scythe and sinks back to the floor, her back to the control panel. "See you guys later, I guess."

She looks at the unconscious Primitive.

"_You_ too, B," Faith says.

**Memory of approximately 300,000 years ago, location unknown**

Dawn, Willow, and Riley materialize among a group of naked people. The people all have brow ridges and projecting faces with large teeth. The males are all tall and well muscled, the females are considerably smaller. All of them are standing in a circle and within the circle, a female of the species appears to be weaving something out of the very air. Tendrils of green light trail from the female's fingers and coalesce into something that moves as if alive. Standing in front of the female is a young child, also female. This is the young Primitive.

"That little girl," Riley says. "Is _that_…?"

"The _Primitive_?" Dawn says. "Yeah, I think so. What do _you_ think Willow?"

There is no response.

"_Willow_?" Dawn says. Our viewpoint expands so that we now see Willow as well as Riley and Dawn. Willow is staring behind them. She is clearly stunned by what she is seeing. Dawn and Riley follow her gaze, and their eyes widen in shock. Our view swiftly pans from right to left, following their gaze, until we see who they are looking at.

Tara Maclay.

"Tara?" Willow asks in a whisper. "_Baby_?"

Dawn seems unable to speak at all.

Riley clears his throat uncomfortably.

"_No_," Riley says. "I don't think that's really her. But her presence here is important. The only incarnation of the slayer who would remember Tara would be Buffy. This is a _good_ sign."

Willow shakes her head.

"Yeah, you're _right_," Willow says. "Buffy told me about her dream, where Tara appeared to her and translated for the Primitive. It was the first time Buffy had seen the Primitive, when she attacked us in our dreams."

"She looks so _real_, though," Dawn says. Tara looks back at them, her expressive face breaking into a tentative half smile.

"Th…that's because he's _wrong_, Dawn," Tara says. She turns to look at Riley. "I'm sorry Riley, but you're _wrong._ Because it's _me_. I'm _not_ a memory, I'm not a part of Buffy's psyche.

"I'm _Tara_. I'm here. And now _you're_ here, with _me_."

We fade to black, and the opening credits begin.


	3. Act 1

Act 1

**Memory of approximately 300,000 years ago, location unknown**

"You…you're Tara," Willow says. "You're _really_…"

Willow starts to cry uncontrollably.

"Careful Willow…" Dawn says, her own eyes blinking away tears. "It could be…remember the _First_…"

Tara looks at Dawn, shakes her head and smiles.

"I'm _not_ the First," Tara says. "There's a reason why the First never appeared to you as me. _**No**_ one uses me to hurt the people I love. Not if I have anything to say about it. And here, inside the soul of _the_ slayer, I _had_ something to say about it. The First couldn't touch me."

Tara steps forward, still looking at Dawn.

"You've _grown_ so much, Dawn," Tara says. "I am so very _**proud**_ of you! You've become such a _beautiful_ young woman. I got to see you through your sister's eyes, but now, _finally_, I get to see you through _mine_. Well, kind of anyway. I don't really _have_ eyes anymore, except in a virtual spiritual sense."

Willow gets herself under control enough to speak.

"Tara, if you're_ really_ Tara…" Willow starts to say.

"Will, will you just _shut up_ and _hug_ me?" Tara says. "_**Please**_?"

Willow runs forward into Tara's arms. Standing away from them a little, Dawn begins to cry. Clearly uncomfortable with this very personal moment, Riley turns away. As he turns away, he notices that the ape-like people, including the young Primitive and the female who was weaving a construct of green light out of the very air, are all frozen in place.

"W…wait," he says. "What's _happening_ here?"

Riley turns back and we follow his gaze. Tara is holding her arm out to Dawn, who also runs into her embrace.

"I paused the action," Tara says. "We _all_ need a moment. It isn't every day that a dead woman is reunited with her beloved and the little sister of her heart."

"I…I'm sorry," Riley says. "I would _go_ somewhere and give you all privacy, but I have no idea where I am or what I'm doing."

Tara slowly disengages from Dawn, then Willow, then she gently runs her right hand along Willow's cheek while looking into her eyes.

"You're not _intruding_, Riley," Tara says. "You're a _part_ of this. You helped to _bring _them here. I'm more grateful to you than you will ever know."

"So…baby, what are you _doing_ here?" Willow asks between gasps.

Tara touches Willow's cheek again.

"Sweetie…" Tara says. "It started when I _died_."

Suddenly, we are transported back to Willow and Tara's bedroom in Buffy's house in Sunnydale. Tara is lying dead from her gunshot wound. Willow is pleading at the image of Osiris. We hear Tara's voice in narration.

"One moment I'm standing and talking to you, the next moment I'm still standing but you no longer see me. Then I look down, and I know why."

Sure enough, we now see Tara standing, no red bullet hole in her lower abdomen, looking down at her body.

"I immediately knew I was dead, even if I didn't know what had happened. But all I wanted to do was to tell you that I was still _here_, with you, but of course you couldn't see or hear me. I was dead."

We see Tara kneeling next to Willow, who is now screaming at Osiris. Tara is saying over and over again "Baby, it's _OK_, I'm _still_ here. With _you_."

Then Willow screams, and waves of power come out of her mouth and force Osiris away. They also lift Tara's shade and propel it out of the window.

"Then, without knowing it, you pushed me away when you drove Osiris away. I found myself outside the house. That's when I saw what had happened to Buffy."

Tara turns and sees Buffy, the paramedics working on her. Buffy seems to be leaking a very bright, burning light. Tara covers her eyes.

"I had always been attracted to Buffy's aura. It was so _unusual_. It had layers in it. My mother, who could also see auras, said that when you saw layers, what you saw was an old soul that had lived before, sometimes several times before. But in Buffy's, I saw layers upon _layers_. And as she was lying there, critically wounded by Warren's bullet, her aura was leaking out. I saw it better than I had ever seen it before. And for a little while, I forgot about everything and everyone else. I even forgot myself and what had happened to me. I just wanted to get closer to that ancient, powerful soul, like a moth to a flame."

We see the paramedics load Buffy onto the ambulance, Xander following. Unnoticed by everyone else, Tara also follows them into the ambulance. Buffy is still leaking a very bright light.

"I was with her while the paramedics kept her alive, and then while she was in the operating room. Slowly, I came back to myself. I remembered who I was, who Buffy was, and what had happened. But I still couldn't leave. Even when the light became dimmer."

"Because Buffy was _dying_?" we hear Dawn ask in a voice over.

"No sweetie, because the doctors were _saving_ her," Tara replies. "And Buffy was starting to heal."

"Then, _**you**_ came Willow. And I could see how _wrong_ you were. Your own aura was fractured, with dark cracks in it. You radiated power, and I was terrified. You told the doctors to leave, and they ran. And Buffy, she took a turn for the worse. She _died_. And as she died, her soul left her body, and I saw finally her for what she really was."

The light coming out of Buffy becomes bright, unbearably so. Tara covers her eyes, then suddenly she is standing in an extremely crowded room. Buffy is standing next to her. The rest of the crowd is in shadow, we can't make them out except for the fact that they are all female.

"Oh," Buffy says. "Looks like I've died again."

Then Buffy turns and sees Tara.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Buffy asks.

"I died too," Tara says. "I don't know what happened. One minute I was talking to Willow, I think it was one of the happiest moments in my life, and then, I'm still standing there but Willow doesn't see me, and I look down and there I am with a hole in my tummy."

"It must have been Warren," Buffy says. "He must have hit you with a stray bullet when he shot me."

"Who are all these other people with you?" Tara asks.

"_Others_?" Buffy replies. "The only ghosts here are you and me. God, poor Willow. She must be frantic."

"She's right here, don't you _see_ her?" Tara asks.

Buffy turns and looks at Willow. Willow is surrounded by a bright, flaming light with dark cracks in it. The cracks continue to grow and consume the bright light.

"Oh God," Buffy says. "She looks _awful._"

As Buffy speaks, Willow draws the bullet out of Buffy's body. Buffy turns back to Tara.

"Looks like I'm going back to the land of the living," Buffy says. "Man, this is getting _old_."

"What do you mean, this is getting _old_?" Tara asks. Then, as Tara looks around, Buffy winks out, and rapidly, one by one, so do the shadowed female figures. Then, Tara notices that there is another figure in the room who is _not_ in shadow. It's the Primitive. We hear Tara's voice over again.

"And at that moment, I understood, _**all **_of it. I understood what Buffy was, how important she was, and how fractured she was. And I saw her core, cut off from what she had become, and I knew someone had to speak for that core. Someone had to talk for she who was to she who is.

"At that moment, I saw my purpose. Ironic to do so after I died, I guess, but that's what happened. So I went with her. Two souls in one body."

The light around Tara brightens until the scene whites out, the voice over ends, and we are back in the frozen prehistoric tableau.

"And you've been here ever since?" Willow asks. "You've been _with_ us, inside _Buffy_?"

"Yes and no," Tara says. "It's more complicated than that. I've been with Buffy, with _the _slayer, always. I was with Buffy when I was alive, and I was with her in her previous incarnations, before I was born. You see, there is the _mind_, generated by the interaction between the brain and the world, but _then_ there is the soul. The soul is literally a living piece of history. It exists across its entire timeline. A mind remembers, but memories are imperfect, and there can be mistakes in memories. But the memory of the soul is history itself. We are _here_, _all_ of us, in the past, _with_ her."

"_Remarkable_," Riley says. "If what you are saying is true, then we should be able to help Primitive remember her history, remember not only who she was, but who she became. If we can do this, we can reintegrate the slayer until we get Buffy back."

"Yes," Tara says. "That's why I have _been_ here. But I need help. I need _all_ your help. And we need to get started, because if we don't, in the present Faith will soon be facing an awake and very angry Primitive."

And with that, the tableau unfreezes.

**Interior of a passenger jet, probably a large Airbus**

Xander and Cordelia are sitting next to each other. They are clearly in First Class. Xander has the window seat.

"Same old Cordelia," Xander says.

Cordelia makes a brief face.

"Not exactly," she says. "But some things never change. We deserve this."

Xander looks out the window.

"I'm still really worried about Jono and Genevieve," Xander says. "If more runners, or something just as bad, come after them…"

"The runners weren't after them, they were after _you_," Cordelia says.

"Why?" asks Xander. "I haven't exactly been front and center on the scoobie front during the last year."

"Has anyone told you about the Female Trinity?" Cordelia asks.

"Yeah," Xander says. "Dawn and Willow told me about it. Apparently, Dawn, Willow, and Buffy are in some prophecy about the Apocalypse, or the next apocalypse anyway."

"It's a really big deal Xander," Cordelia says. "The dark powers who have been trying to remake Earth have been getting stronger, but so have their primary enemies, Buffy, Willow, and Dawn. The bad guys are nervous. And, it so happens there is this one guy who is best friends to two of them and more to the third. You get that one guy, you deeply hurt all three members of the Trinity."

"_**Huh**_?" Xander exclaims. "How do you know about…"

"I have sources from on high," Cordelia says. "Sources who owe me."

"Look," Xander says. "Dawn and I haven't…We're waiting until she turns 18 before we even _talk_ about dating. You know, _platonic_ dating. The kind of dating that won't make Buffy want to kill me and lock Dawn in the cellar until she's forty."

"Well, that's not your only problem there," Cordelia says.

"What do you mean?" Xander asks.

"I mean that the older Summers girl has been looking at you differently lately," Cordelia says.

"_No_ way," Xander says. "Buffy and I, we're _friends_. We're _just_ friends. That was made clear to me years ago."

"When you two were in _high_ school Xander!" Cordelia says. "Buffy's a lot more mature now, and so are you. I mean _look_ at yourself. You went from construction grunt to foreman to subcontractor to contractor in the span of three years. Then, you sell your contracts for more than 50 million dollars, take that money, and start to build schools and group homes for orphans in the poorest region of the world.

"You are a_** hero**_, Xander Harris. The kind of man any woman who is _**also**_ a hero would be romantically attracted to. Or for that matter some gay guy hero I guess."

"Oh man, that does make things awkward," Xander says, then he turns towards Cordelia suddenly. "_Wait_, what about _you_? You came to save me, so are _you_ thinking of starting things back up?"

"_**Me**_?" Cordelia replies. "Get over yourself Harris! _That_ ended when you were all over Rosenberg. I _still_ have my standards."

Xander briefly stares at Cordelia, then chuckles.

"Thanks," he says. "I _needed_ that."

Xander then grins evilly.

"Besides, I know _Angel_ thinks a lot of you," Xander says.

"How do you know that?" Cordelia asks.

"Hey, I have my sources too," Xander says.

"Bull!" Cordelia says. "How do you know what Angel thinks of me?"

"I insisted on seeing you," Xander says. "You know, when you were in a coma. Normally, Angel wouldn't say two words to me, but when we were in there with you, he wouldn't shut up. Talked about how you were all about the mission of helping people. How you were the heart and soul of Angel investigations."

"Well, yeah," Cordelia said. "I _did_ have some things happen to me that made me take our work seriously. Angel would have respected that."

"That wasn't respect I was hearing in Angel's voice," Xander said. "You ought to go back to him. Talk to him about it. Just make sure you don't make him _**too **_happy!"

"I thought you _hated_ Angel," Cordelia says.

"Like you said, Cordy," Xander replies. "People change. Guess your sources from on high don't tell you _everything_."

"They don't," Cordelia says.

"_So_," Xander says. "How'd you get out of the coma? Angel said that the prognosis was really bad."

Cordelia turns away from Xander, a look of profound sadness on her face. Then she suddenly smiles and looks back at him.

"Tell you what," Cordelia says. "We can talk about that when you wake up. You are clearly really tired."

"Well, yeah I am but…" Xander starts to say. Then his eye closes and his head falls onto Cordelia's shoulder. We move in on Xander's sleeping face. Then suddenly his head starts to move back and forth.

"Wake _up_ Xander, we're here!" Cordelia says. She obviously has been shaking him awake.

Xander opens his eyes.

"What, we're in London _already_?" Xander asks. Then our view pans away from Xander's face. We see he is clearly in a different plane. Instead of African flight attendants, the flight attendants are blond and pale.

"Welcome to Reykjavik," a voice says over the speaker. "And thank you for flying Icelandic Airways."

**Memory of approximately 300,000 years ago, location unknown**

The ape-like woman is still weaving something from the air out of green light. The green light construct slowly takes shape. It looks like an infant of the Primitive's people.

Standing a short distance away are Willow, Riley, Dawn and Tara. Willow is staring at Tara, occasionally reaching out and touching the blond witch's cheek. Dawn, however, is staring at the scene in front of them, obviously one of the Primitive's earliest memories.

"That floating glowing green baby thing," Dawn says. "I think that may be _**me**_!"

"What do you mean?" Riley says.

"I'm the Key," Dawn says. "The people who saw me, the people who Glory 'touched in the head', saw me as a bright, green light."

"Come to think of it," Riley said. "Your eyes were glowing that same shade of green when the Primitive was about to…"

"Kill me?" Dawn finishes.

"Yeah," Riley says.

"You're right, Dawn," Tara says. "That's you. You've been the slayer's soul sister long before you became Buffy Summers little sister."

"Why?" Dawn asks.

"When the Primitive started her hunt in earnest, for the Old Ones, she needed a way to travel the world, to get from one place to another quickly. So your mother, your _first _mother, created you to be the Primitive's constant companion. The Primitive's people would survive another forty thousand years or so before they became extinct. But you stayed with her, and she was the only one who could see you. As long as you were with her, she wasn't alone. Not entirely."

"But now _you're_ with her too," Dawn says.

"You're right, Dawn," Tara says. "You understand how it works. But the fact is, I am riding along inside her. I can talk to her in her dreams, and I have spoken for her as she has talked to her later incarnations, but I am more like a hitchhiker. _You_ were her companion."

"Until someone took me away from her," Dawn says, her voice angry.

"You're right again," Tara says. "Until someone took you away from her."

Willow looks back and forth from Tara to Dawn, as if suddenly aware that there has been an actual conversation going on that she has been missing.

"W…what have they been talking about?" Willow asks Riley.

"I have no idea," Riley says.

"Show me," Dawn says. "Show _all_ of us."

**Approximately 10,000 years ago, North Africa**

The Primitive is roaring in victory. Underneath her foot is a huge demon creature that looks like a combination of a rhinoceros, a crocodile, and a spider. Purple goo is oozing out of it.

Outlined faintly in green light, standing next to her, is a female shape that resembles the Primitive. She too, has her head back, and we hear another, much fainter echo of the Primitive's roar.

Then, suddenly, the glowing green creature's roar becomes a scream. The Primitive doesn't seem to notice at first, until the faint green light becomes a smudge, losing its human shape. The green light seems to be sucked away, and the scream coming from it becomes louder. The Primitive turns, her eyes become wide. We follow her gaze and see that there is now a trail of green light leading up to a distant ridge. Standing upon that ridge are the Shadow Men, the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart. Our view now switches to a close up of them. They are all grinning horrible grins. Their teeth look abnormally sharp. Their eyes are black pits. The one in the center, the Ram, is holding a black wooden box with ornate carvings. The light is draining into that box. When the last of the green light trails into the box, the scream trails with it. Then it is shut off when the box is shut.

Our view returns to the Primitive, who now screams in rage. She leaps high into the air. But when the lands on the ridge where the Shadow men were standing, they are gone.

The Primitive hurls boulders aside, looking for her sister. Then she turns back her head and wails in despair. Tears are running down her face.

"They took me from her," Dawn says as our view shifts to her. Tears are also running down her face.

"Yes," Tara did. "Yes they did. But that wasn't the worst of it."

**Approximately 6,000 years ago, in what would become Sunnydale, California**

We see a close up of the Primitive, falling to her knees before us. She is now dressed as we first saw her in _Restless_. She is bleeding. She tries to rise to her feet, but she can't. We pan away and see a huge, massive corpse of a gigantic Old One, a creature perhaps more than a mile long. Also lying around the creature's corpse are the dead bodies of white haired women.

Suddenly, we see a familiar green light. The Primitive looks up, and actually smiles. We then see what she sees, a glowing female of the same species. Her expression, however, is extremely sad. The key reaches out with her insubstantial hand and arm. The Primitive, with difficulty, stretches her own right arm out, barely able to hold herself up with her left arm.

Then, the next moment, the wooden stake point of the Scythe is rammed into the back of the Primitive's neck, and it erupts out of the front of her throat. The Primitive's eyes stare out in death. We see the green shape of the Key turn away in shame.

"I don't _remember_ this!" Dawn says. "I don't remember_ any_ of this! I betrayed her. I betrayed my sister!"

"It wasn't your fault," Tara says. "They made you do it."

"But I betrayed her all the same!" Dawn says.

"Yes," Tara says. "Yes I suppose you did."

And over the Primitive's corpse, we see the three Shadow men, each with a hand upon the Scythe. They are grinning in triumph.

**The abandoned Soviet missile base in central Mongolia**

We see Faith sitting against the control panel, dosing. Suddenly, we hear the death rattle of the Primitive. Faith's eyes shoot open.

"B!!!!" she cries.

The Primitive is dead, blood bubbling out of her throat.

"Oh God, _no_!" Faith whispers. Tears start to fall down her cheeks.

But then, suddenly, Faith's eyes widen.

"What the…?" she whispers.

Then our view switches to what Faith sees. The Primitive is no longer there. Instead, there is another woman, a young woman who is Native American in appearance. A young woman who is breathing deeply in her sleep and very much alive.


	4. Act 2

Act 2

**Devonshire, the headquarters of the new Watcher's Council (and also the original Giles family estate)**

Giles walks into a very large and yet crowded room. It looks like a combination bedroom and library. Every wall not a window is covered with bookshelves, as well as any free wall under or over a window. The shelves are all full of books. There are more books on free standing bookshelves in the interior of the room. There are also free standing cabinets full of what appear to be mystical artifacts. Giles himself appears to be unshaven and very, very worn. He walks/staggers over to one of the cabinets, moves aside an artifact that looks like a mummified cat and pulls out a bottle of scotch and a glass. He pours the scotch into the glass, and walks/staggers over to a chair and desk also located in the interior of the room. He drinks his glass on the way to the desk.

Once seated, Giles pours himself another glass of scotch. Unnoticed, a large black shadow moves along the book cases. It looks like the shadow of an immense cat, maybe a leopard.

Through the shadow, we see the huge cat crouch as if preparing to spring. We see the cat open its immense, fanged mouth. We expect a roar.

Instead, we hear a soft, multi-syllabic meow.

Giles turns around so that he is facing opposite the shadow and, despite his rough appearance, smiles slightly.

"Oh, _hello_ Ebony," he says. "How is your mistress?"

The cat meows in several, speech like syllables.

"Worried about _me_?" Giles says. "Old Agatha knows me _too_ well, I suppose."

Ebony meows again.

"I actually think this may be the _worst_ day of my life, actually," Giles says.

Ebony meows.

"Yes, even _worse_ than the day my wife left me after murdering my father," Giles says.

Ebony meows.

"Yes, even _worse_ than my worst day in the Turkish prison," Giles says.

Ebony meows, this time louder and with more syllables.

"Yes, even _worse_ than the day Miss Calendar died, or the day Buffy died after I murdered a doctor," Giles says. "Thank you _so_ much for reminding me that I have had some bloody _awful_ days."

Giles takes a swig of his scotch.

"Kennedy, Dawn, and Willow, they all blame themselves, but they have no reason to," Giles says. "_They_ haven't been assassins. _They_ haven't fought in organized warfare. _I_, however, should have _known_ that the slayer academies were invitations for our enemies to kill as many of us as they could in a single attack. The attacks by Khan's Horde in Tokyo and Rothgar's Berserkers in Rome were _clear_ warnings that I _should_ have heeded. But I didn't. For God's sake, I should have realized this point when the First's agent Caleb blew up the original Watcher's Council!"

Ebony meows.

Giles chuckles bitterly.

"You're _right_," Giles says. "It _does_ go to show that even the First Evil can do _something _good. However, _most_ of people in that building were completely unaware of the original Council's _true_ allegiances. They were, at least in part, innocent victims."

Giles takes another drink.

"But that doesn't change the fact that the world is better off with the original Watcher's Council destroyed."

Ebony meows.

"Yes," Giles says. "I _know_ I should be getting some sleep, but I can't. Not until I know that my three girls are all right."

Our view shifts to Ebony, who appears as an extremely cute little black kitten. He licks his paws. Then he looks up at Giles.

When our view switches back to Giles, his head is on his desk, and he is snoring softly.

**Memories of Northwestern North America, approximately 5,900 years ago**

"You mean this slayer died of _old age_?" Riley asks.

Riley, Dawn, Willow, and Tara are standing looking at a very old woman lying on a low bed. She is surrounded by many other people, obviously Native American. The people all have elaborate head dresses and body paintings.

"Yes," Tara says. "But she's the _only_ incarnation of the slayer to have done so."

"I didn't know such a thing was _possible_," Willow said. "I mean, I didn't even see her fighting any vampires or demons or anything."

"She didn't," Tara says. "But she did fight in wars, she lived for almost a century, and she became a chief among her people."

"I've _read_ about this," Dawn says. "Some of the oldest watcher's journals from this period refer to this as the 'century without a slayer'.A time when no slayer was called."

"Right," Tara says. "So far as I could tell, the Shadow Men and the old Council could not call a slayer when an incarnation of _the _slayer was active."

"And the first time that happened the Shadow Men probably had _no_ idea what was going on," Dawn says. "All they knew is that they couldn't call on the slayer's stolen power to call one of _their_ slayers. They must have been _frantic_."

Tara nods.

"Unfortunately, after _this_ one, they had figured it out," Tara says.

As Tara speaks, the old slayer breaths her last, and the scene shifts.

**Memories of the shore of a lake in Central Europe, approximately 5,880 years ago**

Willow, Tara, Dawn, and Riley are standing on the wooden deck of a lake house among a row of lake houses. The houses line the shore but extend out over the water on stilts, and the decks extend further from the houses on stilts. Leaping from deck to deck is a pretty young girl with dirty blond hair.

Then the scene shifts. Willow, Tara, Dawn, and Riley are all still standing on the deck, but it is now night. Flickering fire light can be seen from some of the lake houses, and the light is reflected on the calm surface of the lake. The young slayer is now kissing a young man on the same deck Willow and the others are on.

Suddenly, from inside the lake house, there is a scream. Then, we hear an all to familiar growl. Several people, probably members of the slayer's family, run out onto the deck and leap into the water to get into the boats tied to the posts under the deck. One of them, probably the slayer's mother, yells at the slayer, probably to join them.

That's when the slayer's young man morphs into vamp face, and growls.

The girl screams and throws her erstwhile paramour into the water. Then, two other vampires, one male and one female, emerge out of the house. The slayer's mother (we presume) screams and tried to pull her daughter off of the deck. The slayer, however, gently tosses her mother into the water next to a boat, then kicks one of the vampires, the large male, back into the lake house. The slayer then picks up a fishing spear and rams it through the heart and chest of the female vampire. The vampire immediately implodes. The significance of this is not lost on the young slayer. When the other vampire re-emerges from the lake house, she runs him through as well. As he implodes, there are screams from the water. The young looking male vampire is attacking the people in the boats. At least, until he is impaled by a thrown spear, and implodes into dust.

The girl's family all look up at her in wonder. Our view switches to the girl herself, who is smiling down at her family. Until, that is, another spear erupts out of the front of her chest, and she pitches forward into the water.

(Our view then switches very briefly back to Faith and the undergound missile base. Blood splashes Faith in the face.)

Emerging out of the house are the three Shadow Men.

Suddenly, the scene changes, and we are in a walled city. A young, middle eastern appearing girl is watching an older woman, almost certainly her mother, making a stone tool.

"Jericho," Dawn says. "I think we're now in _Jericho_."

"Maybe," Tara says. "Don't get too attached to this girl, though. The Shadow Men will come for her soon enough. It's going to be a pattern for quite awhile."

**Reykjavik, Iceland**

"This is _it_?" Xander asks.

Xander and Cordelia are both bound tightly in winter clothing. Xander's breath is misting. Cordelia, on the other hand, seems to be surrounded by mist. They are standing on a snow covered street. It is dark. Our view switches so that we see what they are looking at, a small curio shop. Underneath the main sign, presumably in Iclandic, is a small hand lettered sign in English saying "Valkyrie Curios, Traditional Icelandic Goods".

"So, you never did tell me what happened with your coma," Xander says.

"You slept through the entire trip," Cordelia replies tartly. "It's too late now!"

"Yeah, about that," Xander says. "How did I sleep through the layover at Heathrow, anyway? For that matter, how did I sleep through disembarking one plane and getting onto another plane? Inquiring Xanders really want to know."

"Xander, I _**don't**_ have any more time to talk about this!" Cordelia says, her voice now sounding more desperate than tart. "I am going to have to leave you soon!"

"What do you mean?" Xander asks in an alarmed tone of voice.

"No _time_, Xander," Cordelia says. "I'm pushing things _now_. Go _in_, _**please**_!"

"OK_ OK_!" Xander says. He looks at the curio shop, then back at Cordelia.

"So you're telling me this big deal weapon is sitting in a _**tourist**_ shop." Xander says skeptically.

"Just go _in_, Xander," Cordelia says, her voice sounding even more desperate. "I _really_ don't have any more time!"

Oh _kay_!" Xander says. He walks forward, and our view shifts to follow him as he goes up to the heavy door, opens it, pulls hard to open it against the snow on the ground, and goes in.

Our view switches to Cordelia. There is now more mist around her than before.

"_Good_ boy!" Cordelia says.

Then she vanishes.

**Memories of China, approximately 3,200 years ago**

A young woman is being tortured in a village square. Men in official looking robes are supervising the men who are doing the torture. The girl being tortured is held down by massive ropes while something (thankfully, we can't see what) is being done to the girl's hands.

Standing out among the men in the official looking robes is one of the Shadow Men, the Ram.

And standing to the side, unseen, are Willow, Tara, Dawn, and Riley. Willow, Dawn, and even Riley are unable to watch, their heads are turned. Tara, however, watches without flinching.

"How can you _watch_ that?" Dawn asks Tara.

"I can watch it because I have already been here, I have _always_ been here," Tara says. "I think, I think I am able to comfort her, just a little. And even if I am not, at least she isn't going through this alone."

Dawn, who is tightly hugging Willow, swallows hard, disengages from the red haired witch, and turns around to watch with Tara. Our view switches back to the robed men. The Ram nods at one of the other officials, who in turn nods towards the torturers. Our view switches once again to the torturers and the young girl who is their subject. The young girl is clearly broken, she gazes blankly into space. A shirtless, massively muscled man steps forward with a large, curved sword and raises it high above his head.

The sword comes down. There is a wet cutting noise, and the scene flows like water and shifts.

"Where are we now?" Riley asks. He sounds shell shocked.

Dawn looks around.

"I think we're in ancient Egypt," she says.

"Where are the pyramids, the big temples?" Riley asks.

"We're in the country," Dawn says. "Where people lived in grass and mud huts."

A young, dark haired and skinned young woman is ushered forward by a man, probably her father. Another man, shirtless, wearing a brightly colored skirt around his waist and a massive gold necklace, kneels down before the girl and starts to speak earnestly to her.

"What's happening?" Willow asks.

"I think that's her watcher," Dawn says.

"Her _watcher_?" Riley asks.

"Dawn's right," Tara says. "With that girl in China, the Shadow Men were able to determine that the reincarnations of the original slayer didn't remember who they were."

"Which meant that the Watcher's Council could use the incarnations of the original slayer just like they used the other slayers that they created in between," Dawn says. "It all makes sense. The other slayers, the _created_ slayers, were contacted and trained by watchers long before they were activated. Remember, that's what happened to Kendra, and even Faith. In fact, most, like Lyssa, would _never _be activated. But every generation, there would come the surprise: The girl who is contacted by a watcher only _after _she was activated. She would be told that this was highly irregular, but she would accept the guidance and training, the explanation of her purpose, because she would be as alarmed as anyone else about the changes in her."

"You're right again, Dawn," Tara says. "The incarnations of the original slayer would now be working for the Watcher's Council just like the created slayers. The Wolf, Ram, and Hart must have felt that this was the final ironic victory, having the ancient enemy they murdered over and over now working and even _dying_ for them, over and over.

"But things didn't really work out that way."

"What do you mean, Tara?" Willow asks.

"Keep watching," Tara says.

**Mongolia, the abandoned Soviet missile base, and the cockpit of the black helicopter**

Faith is sitting with her back against the control panel, her eyes squeezed shut.

We hear a scream, and then a gurgle, then deep breathing.

"Jesus," Faith whispers.

Suddenly, a familiar voice calls out. It is obviously coming over a radio.

"Faith," the voice says. "_Faith,_ are you there?"

Faith stands up and turns towards the control panel. There is an old fashioned radio microphone on top of the panel, and next to it a speaker. Faith takes it and pushes the black button next to the speaker.

"Hey, baby," Faith says. "How you doin'?"

Our view switches to the cockpit of the black helicopter that brought Faith to Mongolia earlier. Robin Wood is wearing a headset and talking into the mic. Next to him, a grim faced Samantha Finn is at the controls of the helicopter.

"We have a _problem_, Faith," Robin says. "Captain Finn here says that the Initiative's counterparts in China and Russia have both expressed concern about our continued presence in Mongolia. They've given us one hour to finish our business and get out of Dodge, and since the Chinese Initiative has about 20 slayers of their own, the US government wants us out of there in_ thirty_ minutes. How is it _going_ down there?"

Faith laughs shakily as our view switches back to her.

"Man, it's quite a show Woody," Faith says. "Nobody told me that the brat, the witch, and Rile would all disappear on me."

"I…I didn't know they _would_, Faith," Robin says.

"'S OK," Faith says in a tone of voice that indicates that it is **not **OK. "I can tell it's workin'. I ain't been lookin' at the Primitive's ugly mug for some time now."

"What _are_ you seeing?" Robin asks.

"Parade o' girls sleepin', talkin' in their sleep, and _dyin'_," Faith says.

At that moment, there is a wet sound, and blood splashes onto Faith's face. Then, just as quickly the blood vanishes as if it was never there. The sound of deep breathing resumes.

"Yep," Faith says. "_Quite_ a show."

**Interior of the Valkyrie Curio Shop, ****Reykjavik, Iceland**

Xander walks into a small room filled with old, Scandinavian looking curios. It looks more like a junk shop than anything else. It is cramped and uncomfortable looking.

However, behind a counter to Xander's right are two absolutely beautiful blond twins in identical tight, blue turtlenecks.

"Too bad I'm in a committed, 'true love waits' relationship," Xander mutters to himself as he turns towards the two women.

"Hello, ladies," Xander says.

The two women smile bright, identical smiles.

"Hello," they say together in accented English.

"Uhm, I was sent in by a friend to look for something, and I was told you ladies might know what it is," Xander says as he flashes them his most charming, 'aw shucks' smile.

The woman on the right nods.

"We know who you are," the woman says. "What you are looking for is in the cabinet in the back room."

"Back room?" Xander says, looking around. "Where's a _back room_?"

"There," the woman on the left says, pointing to the rear of the cramped shop. Xander turns and looks in the direction where she is pointing. Our view then switches to where he is looking. All we see is shelves full of haphazardly arranged junk.

"Uhm," Xander says, turning to look back at the women. "I find myself forced to ask again, _what_ back room?"

The two women laugh into their hands. Then, the woman on the right points with her right hand in the same direction her twin pointed.

"_There_," she says. "Behind the door, silly man."

"But there's no…," Xander says as he again turns in the direction of the point. Again, our view switches to where he is looking. This time, the shelves of junk are gone. In their place is a large wooden door framed by stone, with an ornate, angry bearded face carved in the stone above the door.

"Ohhhh, boy," Xander says. "So _that's_ how it is."

He turns back towards the women

"So let me guess," he says. "I'm supposed to go though the door that wasn't there a moment ago, and let's all be honest with each other here, it _wasn't_ here a moment ago, by myself, face whatever it is on the other side of that door, and then see if I can find what I came for, do I have that all right?"

The two women enthusiastically nod as one.

"Oh boy," Xander says. He takes a deep breath to steel himself, walks to the door, and puts his right hand on the handle.

"Kinda warm," he says to himself. He swallows, opens the door, and walks through.

Our view switches back to the two women. They are no longer smiling brightly. Their expressions are intense, unnervingly so, as they stare at Xander's back..

Our view switches back to the door as it closes with a heavily finality.

Then, our view switches to the other side of the door. Xander is standing in a very large room. To his right and his left are two huge, roaring fireplaces. On the stone floor are painted circles ringed with Scandinavian looking writing. Each circle is about 6 feet across, and on Xander's side of the room, they are close together, probably no more than 2 feet apart, but as our view goes from one side of the room to the other, the circles become more sparse, eventually becoming as much as 7 feet apart.

On the other side of the room is a massive, wooden cabinet. It's closed.

"OK," Xander says. "What's the catch? I _know_ there's a catch."

As if on cue, the two fires roar harder and brighter. Then, out of the fireplaces, figures begin to emerge. Black, horned and winged demons with huge, glowing red teeth and claws. They have glowing red cracks on their bodies that make them look like walking embers. They are all at least 6 feet tall.

"Some catch," Xander mutters to himself as our view switches. We realize that we now literally have a Xander eye view. The left side of our screen is in shadow, and the view moves rapidly from left to right as our view mirrors the movements of Xander's head. We hear his deep, frightened breathing. Then, suddenly, we hear a noise, like something sharp being dragged across the stone floor. Our view moves rapidly to the left, and we see the face of one of the demons just a couple of feet away. Xander's terrified scream is simultaneous with the demon's horrific screech as it lunges forward, and the screen goes black.

**Memories of England, 898 AD**

"What are they doing?" Riley asks.

Dawn, Willow, and Tara all look grim.

"This girl is about to turn 18," Dawn says. "And the Council's 'gift' to a slayer who turned 18 was to give them a 'test'."

The girl in question, dark haired with a mole on her left cheek, is sitting at a table and staring into a crystal. Her watcher comes over and gently touches her shoulder. Without looking at him, the girl takes the broth her watcher hands her and drinks it. Then she continues to stare into the crystal.

"What sort of test?" Riley asks.

"This ritual hypnotizes the slayer so that she can't access her powers, her strength," Tara says. "Then, the girl is sent to kill a vampire or some other demon while she is powerless."

"That's insane!" Riley exclaims.

"No, it's not," Dawn says. "Remember who the original Watcher's Council were at their core. They were _bad_ guys. They used the slayers as weapons against those who would invade our world from outside hells, but their goal was _still_ hell on Earth. Eventually the Watcher's Council got big, and the Wolf, Ram, and Hart had two other organizations to start. Most of the watchers were as big a dupes as their slayers. This guy was probably convinced that he was doing this for the greater good."

"So they did this because…" Riley says.

"…they didn't want a slayer living long enough to ask questions, or to rebel," Dawn says. "They were probably particularly concerned about the actual incarnations of the 'Chosen One'."

The watcher touches the girl's shoulder again, and says something to her. She blinks and looks at him. He hands her a wooden stake and points her to a door on the side of the room. She stands up and opens the door. On the other side is a large room. Inside, standing with his arms crossed, is a tall, blond vampire.

"_Lothos_," both Tara and Dawn say together.

"That's the first big deal vampire that Buffy killed!" Willow exclaims.

"Yes," Tara says. "The slayer of slayers. I think this one was his first."

Lothos smiles, then there is a scream, and the screen goes black.

**Mongolia, the abandoned Soviet missile base**

Faith is back to sitting on the floor leaning against the bottom of the control panel. Her eyes are tightly shut, but she opens them when there is the sound of deep breathing. We hear two cycles of deep breathing, followed by a scream and the sound of a horrible death. The cycles are now coming faster, literally lasting about 8 seconds each. When the third cycle of deep breathing begins, Faith opens her eyes, and this time they stay open.

Faith lunges forward, obviously relieved.

"Hey B!" Faith says. We now see it is Buffy lying on the floor in front of her. "Welcome back."

"C'mon B," Faith says. "Wake up. I'm goin' crazy in here."

Suddenly, Buffy screams, and her hair catches on fire, then she is consumed in flame.

"_**B**_?" Faith shouts in alarm. "Oh _**God**_! _**Buffy**_!!"


	5. Act 3

Act 3

**Mongolia, the abandoned Soviet missile base**

The body of the slayer is literally engulfed in roaring flames. Faith tries to approach, but the heat drives her back.

Then, just as suddenly, it is over. The flames are gone. The burning slayer has vanished, and there is now a Japanese looking girl breathing deeply in her place.

Faith squeezes her eyes shut, and we briefly flash back to a Faith's eye view of the sleeping slayer. We see a girl who looks almost exactly like Buffy, except her hair is much longer, down past her waist.

"It _wasn't__** her**_!" Faith says to herself. "It _wasn't __**her**_! It _**ain't**_ Buffy, not _**yet**_!"

Her eyes still squeezed shut, Faith starts to rock.

**Memories of Japan, 1422 AD**

Dawn and Willow are in tears. Riley looks grim. Tara simply looks concerned as she looks at Willow and Dawn.

"_How_ could they _**do**_ that?" Willow says. "She saved the town, and her _own people_ burned her at the stake!"

"I _read_ about this," Dawn says. "From the Watcher's Journals. Her name was Madelyn de Perec. She was in Normandy during the 100 Year War, when people were walled up in cities and towns. The town was obliterated when her watcher, in retaliation for their burning her at the stake, let Saint Just's vampires back into the village."

"Saint Just?" Willow asks.

"That was the vampire leader Madelyn killed," Tara says.

"_Ironic_ name," Willow says.

"I just never knew that she looked _so_ much like _Buffy_," Dawn says. "I mean, there weren't exactly pictures."

"I…I'm sorry," Tara says. "I should have warned you but…I don't think I see people like most others do. I kinda notice auras first. Madelyn may have _looked_ like Buffy, but she wasn't her."

"Except that Buffy was once _Madelyn_," Riley says.

"No," Tara says. "The slayer was once Madelyn, and now she is Buffy, or at least hopefully will be again. But there were still a lot of incarnations between Madelyn and Buffy. And Buffy has her own aura on top of all the others. It's a lot _happier_."

Riley nods while we hear Willow say:

"Oh, it's _him_ again."

We are standing in a garden, at night. The slayer is now a young Japanese woman in a kimono. She holds two wooden stakes, but she looks uncertain. When we see the vampire she is confronting, we see why. It is Lothos, the "slayer of slayers".

"Wait," Dawn says as she wipes her eyes. "Tara, _freeze_ the action for a second."

Tara looks confused, but complies. The action is frozen. Dawn walks up to Lothos, then summons Willow and Riley over.

"Guys, take a look at his ring," Dawn says.

Willow and Riley come over and looks at Lothos' ring. We see a familiar insignia around the jewel on his ring.

"Circle of the Black Thorn," Willow says.

"Yeah," Dawn says. "_Clever_. Sacrifice some of the incarnations of the chosen one to a powerful vampire after rendering them powerless. Plant the seed of doubt in their heads. The next incarnation then, deep down, still remembers Lothos, and remembers being powerless against him, even when she still has her powers."

Dawn looks at Riley.

"That sound about right, oh former doc psych student?" Dawn asks.

"Yeah, it does," Riley says. "Classic operant conditioning, you know, in a supernatural, reincarnation sense anyway."

"Unfreeze it," Dawn says to Tara. Tara nods.

"I _really_ hope we get to see 15 year old Buffy kick this guy's ass before she wakes up," Riley says as Lothos approaches the Japanese slayer, who still appears to be frozen in place.

"Me too," says Dawn. "_Me too_!"

The Japanese slayer screams, and the screen goes black.

**Interior of the Valkyrie Curio Shop, ****Reykjavik, Iceland**

The molten demon is still screeching in Xander's face, but Xander is otherwise unharmed. Slowly, Xander opens his eye and looks at the demon.

Then he looks down. Xander is within one of the circles. The demon is standing outside the circle.

"So _that's_ how it is," Xander says to himself.

Then he looks at the demon, and the other demons approaching him.

"Me in circle, you can't touch me," he says to them.

Xander then leaps away from the demon closest to him into another circle. The demon tries to follow, but it has to move around the circles, and by the time it approaches Xander, he has jumped three more circles away. Other demons give chase, but Xander has soon hopped halfway across the room towards the cabinet.

But then, Xander has to stop. The circles are now farther apart, and two of the demons have anticipated Xander's movements and cut him off from the closest circles on the way to the cabinet.

"OK," Xander says to himself as the demons screech at him in triumph. "_Now_ what, clever guy?"

**Memories of Paris, 1794 and Somersetshire, England, 1812**

"She _killed_ herself!" Riley says disbelievingly as we see a young woman's body floating in the Seine.

"Yeah," Dawn says. "Her watcher was a real _peach_. A French Revolutionary who slept with his charge, then had her commit his own personal murder. The old Watcher's Council had him brought back to London and _executed_, I suspect _painfully_."

The scene switches.

"_Now_ where are we?" Riley asks.

"England, I think." Dawn says.

"Yes," Tara says. "1812."

There are two young men sitting at a table in an inn. One appears to be in his young teens, the other in his early twenties. Both are slim, and strikingly handsome.

"Uhm," Riley says. "Where's the slayer in this picture?"

"_I _see her," Willow says.

"_Where_?" Riley asks.

"Watch," says Dawn. The two young men stand up and go up the stairs and walk into separate rooms. We follow the younger man into his room, he takes off his jacket, and we see a noticeable bulge in his upper chest. "He" is a she.

"You mean…?" Riley says.

"Meet Elizabeth Weston," Dawn says. "The slayer who was disguised as a young man. She lasted until 1817, when she ran up against guess who?"

"_Lothos_," Willow and Riley say together. They say the name like it was a curse.

**Interior of the Valkyrie Curio Shop, ****Reykjavik, Iceland**

Xander is taking off his heavy coat

"Hope you fellas don't mind, but it's kind of hot in here," Xander says, then he suddenly stops. "But _not_ as hot as I would expect it to be, the way you guys are glowing and all.

"So _**why**_ is that I wonder."

Xander quickly wraps his scarf around his right hand and suddenly reaches out and grabs a demon by the arm. So startled is the demon that doesn't resist as Xander yanks it off of its feet and into the circle. When the scarf wrapped hand touches the demon, it starts to smoke, and then there are small flames. However, as soon as the scarf and hand are in the circle, the flames go out. The demon, within the circle, immediately crumbles to ash. Xander kneels down and touches the ashes with his bare left hand.

"Not even warm to the touch," Xander says. He looks at the demons.

"Well boys," he says. "Looks like we have us a _new_ ball game."

Xander jumps out of the circle, landing feet first against the chest of the demon between him and the closest circle, which is about 5 feet away. The demon falls into the circle and becomes a falling cloud of ash. Xander lands half way in and half way out of the circle, but rapidly sits up so that his upper body is in the circle as well.

"Easy as store bought pie," Xander says. He prepares to leap to the next circle.

**Mongolia, the abandoned Soviet missile base**

The sleeping slayer on the floor is now a homely looking blond haired young woman. Faith is still rocking with her eyes tightly closed. Suddenly, bullet holes appear on the young woman's chest, and blood flies out, and then there is a east Indian looking young woman sleeping in her place. Seconds later, fang marks appear on her neck, then the neck itself is broken.

Then, a very familiar figure takes her place.

Nikki Wood.

**Memories of New York, 1972**

"You mean Robin's mother was an incarnation of _the_ slayer?" Willow asks.

"Yeah," Dawn says. "Mrs. Giles…you know, Giles' grandmother, moved her around a lot. She also did away with the 18th birthday 'test', the one _Travers_ brought back to do on Buffy. There were a lot of things she couldn't change about the old Council, and worse, she had to go along with some of the worst things to be in charge, but she did manage to protect Nikki for a long time. Nikki was active for almost 7 years, which was a record if you don't count the first two incarnations."

"Yes," Tara says. "Mr. Pendergast, Nikki's watcher, moved her around to keep her away from Lothos. Also, she had some body guards."

"Body guards?" Riley asks.

"Yeah, those two," Tara says.

Nikki is fighting four vampires, and is easily controlling the fight. Three vampires are staked within seconds. The fourth, which has gotten behind Nikki, implodes into dust before he can possibly take advantage of that fact.

Two men then step out of the shadows. One is tall, black, and bald. The other, white and very young, has jet black hair and earrings. He has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and he looks like a tough. He is also holding a shot crossbow in his right hand.

Willow, Dawn, and Riley all stand open mouthed.

"_**Giles**_!!" they all exclaim at once.

**Interior of the Valkyrie Curio Shop, ****Reykjavik, Iceland**

"Sometimes I wonder why I bother on these epic quests," Xander says, half to himself and half to the row of demons screeching between him and the cabinet. "I mean, what is the point of_ this_?"

Xander vaguely points towards the cabinet. Our view switches downward, and we see that there is no protective circle within 10 feet of the cabinet.

Our view switches so that we literally once again have a Xander's eye view of what he is confronting. The left side of the screen is greyed out, and we see the row of demons screeching right at us. And behind them sits the cabinet.

"OK," we hear Xander's voice say. "Suicide to the front, weeniedom to the back. What to do what to do?"

Our view shifts downward to the circle Xander's in. We see Xander's winter boots, and the circle in the flickering light of the two fireplaces (and also probably the glowing ember light from the demons).

"There's _gotta_ be a way _around_ this," Xander says. "I got _this_ far."

Our view shifts back to the cabinet as he looks up and at it. There is still no circle around or close to the cabinet. Our view moves back down to the circle.

"Wait a minute," Xander says. "Maybe that's not paint. Maybe that's tape. Maybe I can pick up the circle and carry it with me."

So saying, we see Xander's right hand go down on the circle. He pinches the middle of it with his thumb and forefinger a couple of times.

"OK, paint, not tape," Xander says. "_That_ was dumb."

Xander's hand pulls away, and we see that the part of the circle where he pinched now has a spot of paint removed. The integrity of the circle is still unbroken, but there is now a paint free hole in the middle of border that reveals the grey of the stone floor underneath. Xander's hand turns over, and we now see black paint on the tips of his thumb and forefinger.

"Check that, _wet_ paint," Xander says. "That was not only _dumb_, that was dumb on an _**epic**_ scale of dumbness."

The screeching increases in loudness. Our view moves back up to the demons and the cabinet behind them. Our view moves back and forth as Xander, compensating for his missing eye, looks back and forth. The demons all look anxious. Our view moves to the right as Xander looks to the right. We see two demons both screeching at Xander, but they are edging back towards the fireplace.

"What's with _you_ two?" Xander says. "I almost let you fellas in, and _you _two suddenly decide I'm not good enough eating for you?"

Suddenly, Xander raises his right hand, palm out, towards the two retreating demons so that they can see the paint on the tips of his thumb and forefinger.

Very quickly, the two demons look towards one another, then turn back and resume their screeching at Xander. However, they also once again start to edge back towards the fireplace, at a faster pace than before.

"Wait a minute," Xander says. He takes his scarf back off of his neck again and looks down at it, holding it in both hands.

We hear Xander's breathing quicken, we also start to hear his heart beating rapidly.

"OK," Xander says as he looks down at the scarf in his hands. "_OK_. Either I am a genius or I am about to commit suicide in the absolutely _dumbest _way possible."

Then, suddenly, the floor moves up towards us as Xander goes to a knee. He reaches forward with his scarf in his right hand, and he wipes away a section of the circle.

Then, our screen goes black as Xander closes his eye. The demon screeching increases in loudness, and comes closer.

Then the screeching is cut off, and there is silence except for Xander's continued rapid breathing and heartbeat.

Slowly, Xander opens his eye, and we continue to see what he sees.

In front of him, instead of raging demons there are several piles of ash. Xander looks rapidly to his right, just in time to see one demon collapsing into ash. The other demon is attempting to dive into the fireplace, but it too crumbles into ash just before it makes it.

"So," Xander says. "Hypothesis confirmed. The circles weren't to protect me from demons, it was to protect demons from what was inside the circles."

Xander steps forward, and our view moves towards the cabinet. Xander's breathing slows down, and we no longer hear his rapid heartbeat.

We see Xander's hands move towards the handles on the cabinet, then stop.

"Wait a minute," Xander says. "Classic horror movie moment. One last demon in the cabinet?"

Our view moves sideways to the right. Then Xander reaches out his right hand and quickly opens the cabinet's right door. We see the door, but the door blocks our view of the interior of the cabinet. Xander waits a couple of seconds, then moves around the open door. No demon jumps out of him. Instead what we see are several shelves full of the same sort of junk that was in the front room of the shop.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me!" Xander says. "All _this_ for more _junk_?"

Xander's hands reach out and rummage through the junk, first on the shelf at eye level, and then on the shelf right under it.

"Oh, this is just _hilarious_!" Xander says with disgust as he pulls an object out. It is a wooden, painted eye. The paint is faded and the eye itself is cracked in several places, revealing the interior of the wood underneath.

"What a _prize_!" Xander exclaims sarcastically. He raises the wooden eye with his left hand until it is right up to the screen. We view it from the right, as Xander's remaining right eye would view it. "_Look_ at _me_ everyone! I got myself a new _**eye**_!"

Then suddenly, the grey out to the left side of our screen turns bright red, and Xander screams in obvious pain.

**Memories of New York, 1977**

It's raining, and Nikki Wood is fighting Spike. Spike ducks under Nikki's right cross and gets behind her, putting her into a half nelson, then lowering his head to bite when he stops.

"_Wait_ a minute," he says. "I smell a kid. I smell _your_ kid."

"You're _not_ touching him!" Nikki snarls.

"_I'm_ not the one you have to worry about there, pet," Spike says. "But wherever I go, Dru follows, and my lady has a thing for little kiddies. You need to get him _out_ of here. Get him to a safe place, and we can meet up later to finish this."

Spike then pushes Nikki away.

"Are you _serious_?" Nikki asks disbelievingly.

"OK, _wait_ a minute," Riley says. "I agree with Nikki, what _is_ this?"

He looks at Tara, who shrugs.

"Don't look at _me_," she says. "I never understood this part either."

"Yeah," Willow says. "I mean, Spike was _evil_. This was Spike without a chip, without a soul, why would he worry about a little 4 year old boy?"

Dawn, meanwhile, wanders over to where 4 year old Robin Wood is hiding behind a park bench.

"One of the people who was killed in the bombing of the old Watcher's Council was a watcher-in-training named Penelope Jenkins," Dawn says, turning to look at Willow. "We saw her at the magic shop, remember?"

"Yeah," Willow says. "I _do_ remember. She did a thesis on Spike or something, right?"

"Yep," Dawn says. "She did. I've _read_ that thesis. Our Spike was a complicated guy, even when he was a soulless vampire. Oh, he killed more than his fair share of innocent victims, but he had some weird standards. For example, he often tended to avoid killing older women, particularly those who were reported to be 'motherly'.

"And then there were the children, particularly children under 10 years old."

"You mean," Riley says. "He didn't eat kids?"

"More than that," Dawn says. "Did Buffy ever tell you guys about the time she interrupted my story time with Spike?"

Willow, Tara, and Riley all look at Dawn blankly.

"Guess _not_," Dawn says. "Spike was telling me about the time he and Drusilla slaughtered this family in their home in the early 1900's. He was just getting to the really creepy part, where he had found this little girl in the coal chute. Then, Buffy came in, and Spike finished his story lamely with something like… 'and I took the little girl to an orphanage, where they found a new family for her who did not put her in a coal chute and she lived happily ever after'.

"I mean, I thought it was the lamest thing I ever heard," Dawn says. "The weird thing was, it wasn't _that_ far from the truth."

_We flash back to Spike looking at a wide eyed little girl in the coal chute. Spike is in full vamp face. _

_Suddenly, we hear Drusilla's voice._

"_William, where __**are**__ you my little William?"_

_Spike hastily slams the door to the coal chute shut with a clang._

"_**Here**__ pet," Spike says. "And Dru, remember, I'm __**Spike**__ nowadays!"_

"_I'm sorry my little Spikey," Drusilla says as she enters the kitchen. She is dragging a dead woman behind her. The woman's eyes are wide and glazed over, and there are two holes on the side of the neck. "I'm __**bored**__. The mommy has nothing more to give me, and the children are all played out and I…" _

_Drusilla stops and sniffs the air._

"_Fee fi fo fum," Drusilla says. "I smell the blood of a little __**English**__ girl!"_

"_Yeah," Spike says. "I found her, she's in the coal chute. Unfortunately, she smothered in there."_

"_Oh foo!" Drusilla says with a pout. "I __**hate**__ it here William…"_

"_**Spike**__, pet." _

"_**Spike**__," Drusilla corrects herself. "There's nothing more to do here. It's boring. Let's go walk in the moonlight."_

"_Sure Dru," Spike says. He joins Drusilla, and together they walk out of the kitchen. We soon hear the distant closing of the front door. _

The scene returns back to memories of New York.

"You mean, Spike really _did_ save the little girl?" Willow asks disbelievingly.

"Well, yeah, in a passive aggressive way," Dawn says. "However, don't make too much out of it. If Drusilla had found the girl first, he _wouldn't_ have interfered. Still, that little encounter changed history."

"What do you mean?" Willow asks.

"I attended that little girl's funeral three weeks ago," Dawn says.

"Wait…" Willow says. "You're saying…?"

"That little girl grew up to be Edna Giles," Dawn says. "No Grandma Giles, no Giles."

We are now in the subway train. Nikki Wood has Spike pinned beneath her. He is obviously at a complete disadvantage.

"Here it comes," Tara says.

Suddenly, Nikki turns and looks right at Tara.

"Tara, _wait_," Nikki says. "_Freeze_ the action before he kills me. _Please_."

Tara and the others all stare at Nikki Wood, stunned.

**Mongolia, the abandoned Soviet missile base and the cockpit of the black helicopter**

Faith is still rocking with her eyes squeezed shut when a shadow falls across her and we hear a voice say:

"_**Faith**_."

Faith looks up.

"Who're _**you**_?" she asks.

Our view switches to the interior of the cockpit of the black helicopter. Samantha Finn is at the controls.

"How much time do we have, Graham?" Samantha asks.

"We were supposed to have been gone two minutes ago," Graham replies.

"_**Dammit**_!" Samantha exclaims. "We're gonna have to _bug_. Tell everyone to get situated into their seats."

"Don't think we're gonna be able to do that," Graham says. "Slayers are even more stubborn about leaving behind their own than _we_ are."

"I_ know_ that Graham," Samantha says. "I remind you that _my_ husband is down there, but we have our orders, and do _you_ want to explain to Riley why we didn't follow them?"

"No ma'am," Graham says. "I'm just saying that I don't think we'll be able to keep some of the slayers on board if they don't want to go."

"Then we leave them behind," Samantha says, tears going down her cheek. "Besides, Dawn and Willow should be able to get everyone out, _if _they're OK."

At that moment, a voice crackles over the radio.

"Lehane to Finn," Faith's voice says. "We got ourselves an issue down here."

"We were about to_ leave_ you, Faith," Samantha says. "What's up?"

"Y…you gotta send Robin down here, _immediately_," Faith says. "It's the quickest way we're gonna get everyone back."

Samantha looks confused, but she nods to Graham and he leaves the cockpit.

"What do you need _Robin_ for?" Samantha says.

Rather than hear Faith's answer to the question, our viewpoint shifts to the huge door to the missile base. Robin is standing in front of it. Standing alongside him are Lyssa McGrath, her daughter Karyn, Vi a.k.a. the "Red Death", and Rona. We hear the huge bolt go back, and the great door is pushed open by Faith.

Robin walks forward rapidly. The four slayers follow behind him, but then turn and look out the door. Obviously, the four of them are standing guard.

"Honey," he says. "You look three shades of _awful_!"

"Yeah, I'm glad to see you too," Faith says. "Sam says the Chinese are on their way with about ten slayers of their own."

"Yeah," Robin says. "These four refused to leave. Jinny and the other girls wanted to stay too, but Sam was worried that that would be too strong a show of force."

"The damn Chinese and Russians oughta be _grateful_ we took care of Khan for them," Faith says. She turns to the four slayers standing guard. "Thanks for staying girls."

"De nada," says Rona.

"Go ahead Faith," Lyssa says. "You two do what you need to do."

Faith nods, and she and Robin walk deeper into the base.

"Where _is_ she?" Robin says. His voice is tight, as if he is barely able to maintain control.

"Right around the corner Ace," Faith says. "I hadda give her my coat. The Primitive kinda messed up B's clothes."

And indeed, literally around the corner, in the control room, stands Nikki Wood.

Robin runs into his mother's arms. They hug wordlessly for a few seconds, then Nikki forcefully disengages herself from her son.

"I'm sorry, son, we don't have much time," she says.

Robin shakes his head.

"Giles told me, I mean… that you were _also_ an incarnation of the original slayer but…" Robin says. "I…I never _thought_…"

"You'd see me again?" Nikki says. "You should have seen it from my side. Seeing my son, trying to get the word across to my current incarnation that you _were_ my _son_.

"Seeing you as a high school principal, seeing you work with kids on a damn _hellmouth_, of all places, and treating them with class and grace…and not being able to tell you how proud of you I am…I owe Buffy and Tara so _much_ for this moment!"

"_**Tara**_?" Faith exclaims.

"Don't have time to explain, Faith," Nikki says. "I'll leave it to my successor when she comes back."

"You're _leaving_?" Robin asks, his voice absolutely heartbroken.

"Of _course_ I'm leaving," Nikki says. She gives her son another fierce hug and a kiss on the cheek. She holds his face in her hands. "This _isn't_ _**my**_ life son! But I get to see you one more time, to say a proper goodbye. And now you _know_, you _**know**_, how _**damn**_ proud of you I am, _**right**_?"

Tears running down his cheek, Robin barely chokes out his reply.

"Yeah."

"One last thing then before I go," Nikki says. She turns to Faith and gives her a hard hug. Then she disengages.

"Lemme _see_ it," Nikki says.

"See _what_?" Faith asks.

"What _else_?" Nikki says. "The rock my son got you."

"Oh," Faith says. Slowly, reverently, she reaches into a pouch on her belt and pulls something out. She opens her hand up and shows Nikki a white gold diamond engagement ring.

"That's what _I'm_ talkin' about," Nikki says. "Welcome to the family Faith."

With that, Nikki once again quickly hugs first Faith, then Robin. Then she disengages and step back.

"You kids go out around the corner," Nikki says. "You don't need to see or hear what happens next."

"I can handle it," Faith says.

"You've handled _enough_," Nikki says. "Treat her extra special, son, she's had a really rough day."

With that, Nikki Wood lays back down. Faith hastily leads her fiancé around the corner.

**Memories of Hemery High in Los Angeles, October, 1996**

Lothos and Buffy are fighting in a burning gym. Buffy is wielding a flag pole and Lothos is fighting with a sword. Lothos looks frustrated and scared.

Buffy parries Lothos' sword with the flag pole. The edge of the sword cuts into the pole, and Buffy snaps it in two.

Then, she ducks under Lothos' slashing attack and slams the bottom half of the flag pole through Lothos' chest. Lothos implodes with an embarrassed half smile on his face.

"Thanks for the _assist_, dumbass," Buffy says.

"_**Yeah**_!" yells Riley Finn. He high fives Dawn, then makes a face and shakes his hand ruefully.

"Note to self: Never, _ever_, high five a slayer," Riley says.

"What's happening _now_?" Willow asks.

We see two scenes, one overlapping the other. One scene is in shadow and we can barely make it out. The scene in shadow, however, is extremely familiar. We see a shadow Angelus threaten a shadow Willow. In for foreground, we clearly see Angelus threatening an eleven year old Dawn.

"I…I didn't understand at first," Tara says. "Then I remembered about Dawn and the monks, how they made it seem that Dawn was with us all the time when in fact they created her in September of 2000.

"But that's not what _really_ happened. If the whole 'Dawn was created by monks' thing had happened, then we would be seeing _Dawn_ in shadow, not the other stuff."

Tara turns to Dawn.

"So that means that you were right, when you told Buffy that you thought that as the Key you actually went back in time. The history we remember is the actual history that happened. When you went back, you _rewrote_ history. I can't _imagine_ a greater or more _frightening_ power than that."

Dawn nods.

"You may not have noticed, Willow, but the shadows first appeared right before Mom brought me home from the hospital. There was a shadow of Mom crying on Dad's shoulder, from the original history, when I was a lost pregnancy."

Suddenly, Willow interrupts Dawn's explanation by turning towards Tara.

"Oh no, oh _**no!**_" Willow exclaims. "It's almost _**over**_ isn't it? We're about to leave, and I won't ever_ see_ you again!"

Tara takes Willow's face in her hands and kisses her.

"I'm sorry too, baby, but this is the way it _has_ to be," Tara says. "You _**know **_that."

Willow nods. Dawn, tears now running down her own face, steps forward and takes Tara's hand.

"But you'll still _be_ here, _right_?" Dawn says. "Inside the slayer, inside _Buffy_?"

"_No_ honey," Tara says. "We _did_ what I came here for. She who is now remembers she who was. She has _become_."

"Then…then…what are you going to _do_?" Willow asks.

"Haunt you guys, probably, even if you never see or hear me," Tara says. "But…but…I really want to _find_ my mother."

"C…can you find _our_ mother?" Dawn says. "See how she's doing?"

"Sure," Tara asks. "Uhm, _which_ mother are you asking about?"

"_Both_ of them," Dawn says.

Then there is a bright light.

**Mongolia, the abandoned Soviet missile base**

Buffy sits up, still wearing nothing much but Faith's coat. Faith and Robin walk back in from around the corner. Willow is weeping into Dawn's shoulder, and Dawn's own face is wet.

Riley walks up to Faith.

"How are you holding up, soldier?" he asks gently. "Nikki told us when she came back that you had seen all the incarnations of the slayer die, but without the context we all were witnessing. It was bad enough in context, I can't _imagine_…"

Faith briefly hugs Riley. Riley looks apologetically at Robin, who looks shell shocked.

"Hey man," Riley says to Robin. "I'm sorry."

Robin shakes his head.

"No problem," Robin says. "I hugged some of _my_ brothers and sisters in arms back when I was in Iraq. The first one."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Riley says. "You know, _again_."

"Hey, no worries," Robin says softly as he takes Faith's hand. "I think…I rather think this was probably the _best _day of my life."

"Well, I think it was the most _intense _day of mine," Riley says. "And believe it or not, you weren't the only one to see a lost love come back to say good…"

As Riley turns around, his voice trails off. Standing in Faith's coat is not Buffy, but Tara.

Tara looks at Willow.

"B…Buffy wanted you to have something _more_ than a _virtual_ goodbye kiss," Tara says.

Willow steps forward into Tara's arms. They kiss, then hug tightly.

"I _love_ you!" Willow whispers.

"_Always_, Willow, _always_!" Tara says. "But, _please_ don't spend too much time looking back. You have _so_ much ahead of you."

Willow smiles through her tears. She pulls back her head to say something to Tara, but it is no longer Tara embracing her, it is Buffy. Willow embraces Buffy and starts to weep.

"_Good_ to see you, Buff," Willow whispers between gasps.

At that moment, Lyssa, Karyn, Rona, and Vi run into the control room.

"We got _company_," Lyssa says, grimly.

Over the radio, we now hear an authoritative male voice, speaking in Chinese.

"What are they saying?" Karyn asks Dawn.

"'Surrender, Dorothy'," Dawn says. "Well, _eff_ _**this**_. We've already _met_ our drama quotient for the day."

Dawn goes over to the radio and speaks rapidly in Chinese. Our view switches to the outside, where four huge helicopters are hovering around the massive open door to the missile base. Suddenly, the four helicopters all turn and fly rapidly away.

'What did you _say_, Sunrise?" Karyn asks Dawn. They are now both standing at the entrance watching the helicopters depart. The sounds of their engines are already quite faint.

"I told them the truth," Dawn says. "I said that we have Willow Rosenberg with us, and that she's very upset."

Dawn then jerks her head back towards the interior of the base.

"C'mon," Dawn says to her best friend. "With Willow's help, I ought to be able to get us home."

"_Home_?" Karyn echoes. "And _where_ _exactly_, pray tell, is home _now_?"

Dawn turns and stares at Karyn.

"Whoa," she replies. "_Good_ question."

**Formet location of the Valkyrie Curio Shop, ****Reykjavik, Iceland**

Xander is hastily fastening his coat. His eye patch is abandoned on the snow covered ground, and we see that he once again has _two_ eyes. He holds his gloved hand in front of his left eye.

"Damn thing doesn't even _see_," Xander mutters to himself.

Then he looks up. We follow his gaze until we see, standing by the street in a cloud of mist, Cordelia Chase.

"Welcome back, sailor," Cordelia says.

Xander looks around.

"The curio shop is gone," Xander says. "And so are the two hot chicks who ran it."

"Look _up_," Cordelia says.

Xander looks up. Hovering above the two buildings and the empty lot where the shop once stood are the two "hot chicks". They are now dressed in armor, and they are riding two winged horses.

"Wait a minute, you mean the Valkyrie Curio Shop really _was_ a valkyrie curio shop?" Xander asks.

"Yep," Cordelia replies.

Xander shakes his head.

"Wish I could get this damn _buzzing_ out of my head," Xander says.

"_Stop_, Xander," Cordelia says. "Stop, shut the hell up for once, and_ listen_."

Xander stops, and closes his eyes, and is quiet.

Then, suddenly, he whispers as if he is in a trance.

"I am the eye of Odin."

Xander opens his eyes.

"Whoa," he says.

"_Look_ at me, Xander," Cordelia says. "Look at me and ask the eye what it sees."

Xander looks at Cordelia. Then, Xander's mouth opens in shock.

"A…a _**ghost**_?" Xander says disbelievingly. "It says I'm _looking_ at a _**ghost**_?????"

"Yeah," Cordelia says. "I never _did_ recover from that coma."

"You…you're _**dead**_???" Xander says to Cordelia, his voice rising.

"Yeah," Cordelia replies gently. "Yeah, I am."

"B…but you _saved_ me, you killed the runners!" Xander exclaims. "With a _**crossbow**_!! How can a ghost…?"

Then, he looks down.

"Shut _up_, eye!" he yells. "I want to hear it from _**her**_!"

"The Powers that Be _owed_ me, Xander," Cordelia says. "I got partial payment when I got to help Angel find _his_ way. I got _final_ payment when I helped you to find _yours_."

"But…" Xander starts to say, but Cordelia holds up her hand.

"_Listen_ Xander," Cordelia says. "You guys are up against an enemy like you've never been up against before. They are clever and they are relentless, and they have almost certainly infiltrated your ranks. Don't tell _anyone_ other than Giles, Buffy, Willow, and Dawn exactly what your new eye can do. _Use_ it. There is a reason why it was called the '_all seeing eye'_. You'll_ need_ to know what it sees."

"_God_, Cordelia, I'm so _sorry_," Xander says.

"Oh stop _sniveling_, willya?" Cordelia says. "Do you see _me_ crying about it?"

"No," Xander says. Tears are coming out of both eyes, but he smiles slightly.

"So, see you around?" Xander asks.

"Maybe," Cordelia says. Then she vanishes.

End of Webisode

_A quick note:_

_People who have read my fan fic "Looking for Buffy Summers" will know who the bald guy with young Giles was in Nikki Wood's memories. For those who don't, a tip of the hat is due to author Robert B. Parker. _

_For those who got this far, I hope you found the trip worth it. _


	6. Next, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Next, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

_The following is a preview to a "webisode" __**I do not actually plan on writing**__. Following this are the summaries of the three I __**do**__ plan on writing…someday. Right now, I plan on returning to my King Kong/Doc Savage/Black Panther crossover before going back on another hiatus due to the holidays, my work, and my research project. _

**Xander walks into Giles' office. **

"Hey G-man," Xander says. He is wearing an outrageously colorful eye patch.

Giles stands up.

"Good to see you," Giles says before he makes a face. "_**Good lord! **_That eye patch is the most _appallingly_ awful one I've seen you in yet."

"Oh, sorry," Xander says. "I'll take it off then."

Xander then slips off the eye patch and reveals the eye underneath. Giles' jaw drops.

"Now, over the years I've had all sorts of questions to ask about you," Xander says. "Where oh where shall I start?"

"**I'm not who I **_**used **_**to be Dawn," Buffy says. **

"Because you remember who you were," Dawn says.

"Yeah," Buffy says. "I mean, those women weren't me, and I'm not them, but I _was_ them, y'know? It's like, I'm Buffy, but I'm also this ancient, immortal being. And, I'm back to being the one girl in all the world. I mean, let's face it, I am never, _ever_ going to have a normal life, in this one or any life to come."

"Did you ever think you would, even after the other girls were called?' Dawn asks.

"Maybe not, but I was thinking maybe I could kind of settle down with someone, even had someone in mind, if I could get him to notice me like he used to."

Dawn looks very uncomfortable upon hearing her sister's words. Buffy doesn't seem to notice.

"I mean, what kind of guy am I _ever_ going to find _now_?" Buffy says. "Where's a guy who can understand someone with centuries of memories. And don't even _mention_ Angel or Spike."

**A handsome, young looking man is being attacked by six vampires in a winding Rome alley. ** Suddenly, Buffy drops among them and in rapid succession stakes four of the vampires.

"Back off, _slayer_!" one of the remaining vampires, a formidable looking one standing over six feet tall and probably weighing around 250 pounds. He speaks with a German accent. "Or I tear this boy's head off!"

The "boy" then throws the large vampire over his shoulder. Before the large vampire can even sit up, Buffy stakes him. The last vampire, who is even larger than his companion, implodes into dust after the young man produces his own wooden stake from his jacket pocket.

"Uhm, it looks like you were already prepared for vampire pests Mr…." Buffy says.

The young man, who very sharp eyed viewers would recognize as the Romance cover man Buffy rescued in "Once More with Feeling", smiles, takes Buffy's hand, and kisses it.

"Immortal," the man says. "I simply go by the name of _The _Immortal."

The actual stories I am planning to do next…

Dragon Ascendant

A Virtual Buffy "Webisode"

Buffy's dangerous cat and mouse game with the Immortal is complicated by two jealous exes. Meanwhile, Dawn returns to a "rebuilt" Sunnydale High for information from the new librarian.

Buffy the Dragon Slayer

A Virtual Buffy "Webisode"

The climactic battle between good (led by the Warrior, the Goddess, and the Adept) and evil (led by the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart) begins in Hyperion Alley.

Tougher than Hell

A Virtual Buffy "Webisode"

Dawn, Willow, Conner, Spike, Illyria, and Xander are in for a huge surprise when they go to Hell to rescue Buffy and Angel.


End file.
